“I have been blamed by Republicans for a lot of things, but being blamed for their primaries and who they are selecting for their party is novel,” Obama said during a press conference at the White House, standing next to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

He pointed to conservative social media, talk radio and other news outlets that have hammered into the base the notion that everything he does is wrong, and compromise is a betrayal.

“I don’t think that I was the one to prompt questions about my birth certificate, for example,” the president added. “I don’t remember saying, ‘Hey, why don’t you ask me about that?’ or ‘Why don’t you question whether I’m American, or whether I’m loyal or whether I have America’s best interests at heart?’ … So what you’re seeing within the Republican Party is, to some degree, all of those efforts over a course of time creating an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive.”

But…

Every day he is a serious candidate brings more damage to america, at home and abroad…

And if some major economic or security disaster befalls our nation between now and November who knows what may happen?

WHY couldn’t the GOP come up with just ONE sane candidate? It is criminal that they have put the nation in such a dangerous position.

The second is that history is a long unpredictable process, somewhat like digestion, and that there are general trends and themes that slowly develop, or recur cyclically, and are outside anyone’s control or direction.

I’ve given this a lot of thought and have come to the conclusion that both these theories are correct, and simultaneously, both are wrong. After all, don’t “random” and “unpredictable” mean pretty much the same thing? Or to put it another way, it all depends on the scale at which you look, or the temporal resolution you employ. I.e., both processes operate simultaneously.

Confused? I’m not surprised. I suppose the best way to look at it is the old joke:

Three historians, A German, an American, and a Chinese, are discussing the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte on history. The German says the superior man, the ubermensch, changes the course of history through his sheer strength of will. The American claims that history is the result of an infinite number of influences reacting unpredictably, and if Napoleon hadn’t come along, someone else like him would have.
The Chinese philosopher merely answers “Its too early to say, one way or the other.”

Still, I am an optimist. Good ideas are more likely to survive longer than bad ones, so there is some progress. Some times there are eddies in the time stream, and kinks in our timelines, but over the long run, things do get better. Its always been a “two steps forward, one back” kind of progress, but it is progress nevertheless.

I don’t believe in Asimov’s psychohistory, but I do believe the future will be better if we just wait long enough. I also believe that when the future gets here, it will be like nothing anyone ever anticipated.

In short, yes, it IS possible to influence the future; but you can’t ever predict how its going to turn out. Napoleon, Hitler and George W Bush all changed the world, but it didn’t turn out any way at all the way they expected.

But his flock of followers is no random accident. They have been cultivated and nurtured, carefully assembled and systematically whipped into a frenzy for the last half-century or so. It’s just that they’ve finally slipped the leash and gone out of control.

But for me, the real damage he’s done has to do with the loss of “what could have been.” Trump has stomped the life out of too many promising contenders. Imagine a contest between Rand Paul and Hillary–it would have been intelligent, it would have been passionate about real issues. It would have been a true and meaningful debate about who we are and how we want to proceed from here. And it won’t happen now. Instead, we’ll have an election that’ll embarrass us for generations to come.

We voted last night (by mail) for Bernie, even though we are Hillary supporters.

I really like Bernie, (in spite of his Socialist label, he’s essentially a European Labor Party kind of guy, a real New Deal Democrat) his policies are probably more in line with my own than Clinton’s are, I just feel Clinton has the instincts and experience to do better in a dangerous world and against a hostile and unscrupulous, even treacherous, domestic opposition.

But we reasoned Bernie is doing good work by appealing to idealistic young voters, bringing to our attention the role of the Wall Street lobbyists and donors, and he has been effectively pulling Clinton further left towards the center. He has also made it so “Socialist” is no longer a dirty word in America.

Even though I don’t believe Sanders can overtake Clinton in delegates, the longer he stays in the more these goals will be accomplished. Besides, in the event Hillary stumbles, for whatever reason, Bernie will be an effective Plan B in place.

As for the Republican race, I must confess I see little difference between Trump and Cruz, except Cruz is smarter and more religious.